What is your most memorable seder?’

A few years ago, my cousin Paul joined us at our family seder in London. He was born in Vienna and, with his parents, escaped the Nazis around the same time in 1938 as I did. Whereas I had stayed in England, they had gone to America. The following is the answer to the above question as he related it to us. Undoubtedly, my most memorable seder was in Washington, where I was stationed as a very young sailor in the US Navy. It was my first posting and, as Pesach was approaching, I started to feel the pangs of being 3,000 miles from home: I wouldn’t be able to sit at the family seder my dad would be conducting in Los Angeles. However, I discovered all Jewish military personnel in the Washington area were invited to a community seder sponsored by the United Jewish Fund of Washington. The seder would be held at the Washington National Cathedral. On the appropriate evening, I arrived at this most impressive cathedral, which was a very important landmark in Washington. I was led into an enormous hall, which contained long rows of tables all suitably decorated for the occasion. There must have been about 300 men and some women, all in uniform, representing the various branches of the armed forces. There was also a sprinkling of uniforms from other countries, personnel from legations and various military attachés. At one table sat two Jewish military chaplains (Army and Navy) together with the Cathedral priest. It was all most impressive and quite intimidating for this young sailor from California. Eventually I was seated between two women, each of them in uniform. Strangely they spoke with identical accents. Maybe they were sisters but they didn’t resemble each other. I asked them about their light German accents. It turned out they were both stationed at the Pentagon in Washington. One was in the Army, the other in the Air Force. As the two chaplains and the priest alternately conducted the seder, I quietly carried on putting my questions to the two servicewomen. They had obviously come together for the seder. They both spoke German. No longer able to contain themselves, they told me they were both born in Vienna! Each had been saved by the Kindertransport and had eventually arrived in America. They had been adopted by different families in Indiana. They hadn’t known each other in Vienna and had only met as teenagers at a Kindertransport reunion. Towards the end of the war, they decided jointly to ‘do their part’ by volunteering for the Army. One had later transferred to the Air Force. They had both become sergeants and were reunited at the Pentagon in Washington. Out of 300 people at a seder in a cathedral in Washington, three unrelated Jewish refugees from Vienna, each of them serving in the US armed forces and wearing a different uniform, celebrated Passover together. Quite a story!